SPY GAMES

3 years ago

CIA Still Behind Drone Attacks

SB Shah/AFP/Getty

Pakistani Islamic students gather at a destroyed religious seminary belonging to the Haqqani network after US drone strike in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on November 21, 2013. A US drone strike targeting a base of the Haqqani militant network in northwest Pakistan killed six people in only the second such strike outside the country's lawless tribal districts.

Promises, promises. Six months after the White House said it would push to move the CIA's controversial drone operations to the Defense Department, the Washington Post reports that the CIA is still running majority of the operations, and according to officials, "the White House vision remains a distant goal." The news comes after high profile strikes in Yemen and Pakistan last week, and highlight the difficulties in getting the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command to take over from the CIA.